My MacPro with Logitech Z5500 speakers connected via a Monster optical cable was having a problem with sound. Specifically when playing music through iTunes the voices would sound extremely quiet, while the music was loud. After fiddling with the equalizer inside iTunes and finding no tweaks in 10.5, I gave up and purchased a fix.
A company called JoeSoft makes a product called Hear. I purchased this from the Apple Store ($10 cheaper than the manufactures website) and changed the threshold on the sound. Problem fixed. My only complaint is that this problem takes up a lot of resources.
If anyone knows a freeware fix for the problem, then please let me know.

Here’s how to enable the developer mode in the Safari web browser. This is good for web developers who want to test the website with various browser user agents. I’ve also heard it’s good for hacking at certain bookstores/coffee houses, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.Apple Safari
Go to the Apple Terminal and type in this:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1Safari in Windows XP
With Microsoft WordPad open
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari\Preferences\com.apple.Safari.plistNote: Application Data is a hidden directory by default, therefore unhide it or type something like
wordpad C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari\Preferences\com.apple.Safari.plist
<p>at run or the command prompt.
Before the last </dict> type in the following:

Well folks, I figured some poor soul out there could use this information. Sorry if this post looks a little wacky, I’m still trying to get the hang of WordPress.

I have a MacPro Quad 3.2Ghz, 10 Gb RAM, 2 Seagate 1 Terrabyte drives, Nvidia GeForce 8800GT video card, and an old Apple 320Gb drive.I installed MacOS 10.5 on my first Terrabyte drive. Windows XP64 on my second drive and Vista on my little 320 GB. I gave up on Linux distros on a dedicated drive due to PIA (pain in the blankity blank) and time constraints.After the installation, install the Network drivers then Windows XP64 Service Pack 2.

After downloaded and extracting (most likely the default location at C:\dell\drivers\R140747) Go to the Device manager and go to Network adapters and select the wireless driver, right click, select update driver, select Install from a list or specific location, browse to the x64 bit directory and install the driver, if asked it’s the Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card.

Bluetooth Driver: Haven’t figured that out yet 🙁

Windows Time Problem: This is complicated and a pain to get the file. Don’t do this if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing!!! You must grab a single file, then add some information to the registry.

I copied the AppleTimeSrv.exe from the Vista 64 partition where I installed Vista 64 and the Bootcamp 64 bit drivers from the original MacOS installation disk (Only readable in Windows…Spooky huh?). (The Retail version of the Leopard installation does NOT contain the Bootcamp 64 bit drivers!!!) The file is located at C:\Windows\system32\AppleTimeSrv.exe after you installed the Bootcamp 64 bit drivers

(I will not post this file due to Apple copyright legal blah blah blah)

Anyway, copy the file to the same location in XP64 and do the following registry hacks.

“Description”=”Maintains time and date when switching between Mac OS X and Windows”

ISight: Haven’t figured out a solution yet 🙁Eject CDROMs: Cannot find Apples version of “Keymagic”, but I did find a piece of software that works for me. It installed an icon in your Windows Icon Tray (Next to the date/time) . CD Tray Pal at http://www.e-systems.ro/cdtraypal.htmAntivirus Software: Typically I use CA (Computer Associates) Internet Security Suite, but it doesn’t support 64 bit OS’s. Tried AVG, killed my computer profile. Avast Antivirus is free for home users and works pretty good on 64 bit systems. See http://www.avast.com

I haven’t tried BitDefender 🙁

Slow Drive Performance Solution: Ok, only attempt this if you’re die hard and really really know what you’re doing. Even I’m not sure about this one, but it seems to speed up everything to righteous speeds

This registry hack will speed up the computer by forcing your drives from PIO 5 to PIO 6.

Ok, so what do you do when you installed a program and can’t uninstall or update it? You also get the following error message “Windows Installer, Error applying transforms. Verify that the specified transform paths are valid.” The solution is to download the Microsoft Windows Installer CleanUp Utility found at Microsoft under Article Id: 290301, or http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

If you’re having problems with Outlook not recognizing the Exchange server, then it’s probably a DNS issue. When setting up a new Outlook profile, use the fully qualified domain name of the server. If you’re not sure what it is, then ping your exchange server. ASU’s correct setting for Outlook 2001 is ex01.asurite.ad.asu.edu not outlook.asu.edu or exchange.asu.edu.

Since upgrading to MacOS 10.4.11, I’ve had users complain about systems locking up and freezing. The system wasn’t locked up, but waiting for a timeout. At first I thought, this issue was confined to the Intel based Macs…..Wrong. After looking at the logs I noticed some NetInfo events had occurred:

After doing some research, I found a odd bug/solution. The program listed below periodically polls lookupd to detect if it’s not responding and if so, forces it to terminate. This solution may not be for everyone, but thus far works for me. So do your homework on it.

My users cannot go to the Adobe website to install Flash Player. How can I deploy Flash Player and related updates over my network?

Adobe Flash Player installers can be licensed for distribution over intranets and through fixed media at www.adobe.com/licensing/. Flash Player installers require administrator privileges on the machine.

I have a few choice words about Canon and their support for Mac, which I shouldn’t say on a public blog….Grr..

Download the latest driver from Canon
Ignore the install file, it doesn’t work. (Try it anyway)
Open up and mount the dmg file.
(if you don’t have Photoshop, then ignore the instructions for the next two lines)
Copy the files located in “Into Plug-in” to “/Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS2/Plug-Ins/Import/Export”
Verify the files have the correct permissions
Copy the files located in “Into Lib_CFMSupport” to “/Library/CFMSupport/”
Verify the files have the correct permissions.
Done

I found an interesting problem with Flash 9 in Windows XP. I installed Flash as a local admin, then rebooted the computer. The user attempted to access some Flash file, but still had an older version installed. I went to the Adobe website and to their online test system that shows which version of Flash and Shockwave are installed. This showed the computer still had the previous version installed.

The solution is to clear the cache for the users account. After I did that, everything worked perfectly. So much for Adobes test site!